GUATEMALA CITY. 
185 
purpose. In the library are many valuable manuscripts, 
mostly unpublished, but of interest to the historian and 
antiquarian. 
Almost worn out with sight-seeing, we stopped at a 
restaurant near by, and with our lunch had some native 
cerveza negra, — an unpleasant beer brewed from mo¬ 
lasses. We had lost the cock-fight; but there was to be 
a bull-fight in the afternoon, to which we were strangely 
attracted, and we purchased seats under the roof at 
three reals, walking over to the Plaza de Toros at four 
o’clock. There was a fair audience — perhaps six or 
seven thousand — in the immense circular building or 
enclosure. As an overture we had an exhibition-drill. 
The soldiers wore red jackets, blue trousers, and white 
caps and cross-belts. The evolutions were well done to 
the bugle-notes, and the whole performance was to me 
much like a ballet, — simply a complicated series of pre¬ 
concerted movements of the human body. 
A horseman clad in black, mounted on a superb white 
horse, then lode across the ring and formally asked leave of 
the Chief of the Corrida to open the games. The Chief 
tossed him a roll of colored paper, which he carried to 
the Amador del Toro and then backed gracefully out of 
the enclosure. Then came the Espada, Manuel Aguilar of 
Seville, with three Banderilleros and as many Picadores, 
followed by horses, mules, and mozos. There were only 
five “ bulls,” of which three were oxen, — and they 
might all have been, for any fight they showed. The 
Picadores did their work, and the Primero Espada did 
some excellent dodging; but this did not satisfy us, so 
bloodthirsty had we become. At first we wanted to have 
a horse killed, and at last nothing short of the death of 
